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Christian Brothers knew of abuse: lawyer

Eoin Blackwell

A lawyer who represented the Christian Brothers against survivors of extreme abuse in Western Australia has agreed it's inconceivable the order's leaders did not know sexual abuse and gratuitous violence was going on.

On Thursday, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse heard from two lawyers who sat on opposite sides of litigation brought in the mid-1990s by abuse survivors from four Christian Brothers institutions in WA.

Under questioning from commission chairman Peter McClellan, Carroll & O'Dea partner Howard Harrison, who was a lawyer for the Christian Brothers in the 1990s, acknowledged the leaders of the order must have known about the violence at its institutions.

"It is inconceivable they didn't know that the violence went beyond punishment, was gratuitous in many cases. It is inconceivable they didn't know that, isn't it?" Justice McClellan asked.

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"Well, yes, your honour," Mr Harrison replied.

Justice McClellan also asked if it was inconceivable the order's leaders did not know sexual abuse was occurring.

"Correct," Mr Harrison said.

Mr Harrison also conceded he may have been instructed not to co-operate with requests to identify the order's organisational structure.

He said his preference would have been to steer the complainants to the correct defendants, but conceded it was "certainly possible that we could have taken a non-co-operative 'you work it out yourself' posture."

The commission this week has heard evidence from abuse survivors at four WA Christian Brothers-run facilities from 1947 to 1968.

The Christian Brothers apologised for the abuse in 1993.

Hayden Stephens, a partner at Slater & Gordon, represented men abused at the institutions.

"My recollection is the response was such, either in writing or certainly in discussion with the partner of the time, Peter Gordon, that they were offering no assistance in giving us clarity around the organisational structure of the church bodies," Mr Stephens said.

He said he did not accept that the Christian Brothers executive had only a general knowledge of the abuse.

"I think the events of August 1993 would support that they had thorough knowledge of the events at those four institutions, thorough knowledge of who the perpetrators were, and probable knowledge in relation to the likely class of persons affected by abuse," he said.

Eventually, $3.5 million was put in to a trust for survivors of abuse following a three-year battle.

In all, 124 men were compensated in tranches of $25,000, $10,000 or $9750 for serious sexual abuse.

A fourth tranche of $2000 was also created.

"To be blunt, the trustees of the Christian Brothers had their knee on our clients' throat and there was little opportunity for our clients to flex their negotiation muscle, or us on their behalf, faced with the judicial decisions that had proceeded this negotiation," Mr Stephens said.

In all, the litigation cost $4 million dollars, split between both sides, the commission heard.